From:  Jan,  [email protected] Uncle Feller's Gift (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series) I remember but two things about the man, and all the other memories were given to me by someone else who lived them. I remember how he looked, and I remember what he did once for me.  I remember him as tall and lanky, a sun-browned figure in a felt hat walking towards me across a field.  I remember the startled feeling that caught in my throat when the "magic man" drew even with my small self and bent to examine my upturned face.   My own eyes, "black as muscadines" my aunts always said, met the strangest color eyes I have seen before or since.  For his eyes were the color of faded stonewashed blue jeans, the color of a mountain wildflower, a soft gentle blue all the more startling in the creased brown face that surrounded them.  He was  Henry, better known as "Uncle Feller", my own Mama's aged uncle, and I had been brought to ask a favor of him. I held out a timid finger for him to inspect, and he rubbed his own work worn fingers over it.  He gazed out across the field as if at something I could not see, cut off a "chaw" of tobacco, and we stood there in silence, we two,  youth and elder, for a bit of time.  Then he grasped my finger in between two of his rough ones, and he spat upon it!  When I began to draw back, the brown skin about his blue eyes crinkled, and he smiled.  Reassured, I let him rub his fingers over my own, and he began to mumble words I did not understand.  When he was finished, I gazed down at my finger, but the wart was still there and I looked again up at the faded blue eyes.  Again the browned skin around them crinkled, drawing my eyes to the smile beneath.  "Tomorrow," he said.  And that is all I remember. But sure enough, "tomorrow", the wart was gone.  And it was as my Mama had told me.  Uncle Fellar could remove the unsightly blemish without pain.  That is the second, and the last, of my personal memories.  For the rest, I must borrow the memories of others. Uncle Feller had been blessed with "the gift" and no one was quite sure why, as he was not the seventh son of the seventh son.  But he is who it was who could lay hands upon a person and somehow draw sickness right out.  A young cousin was a hemophiliac, and when the boy was hurt, and his blood flowed, when all others around were terrified, only Uncle Feller could stop it.  By laying hands upon him, and reciting a verse from the Bible, the blood would stop.  Uncle Feller could do many things, even remove a wart from a frantic child's hand. Uncle Feller Warfield never married, but he was loved just the same.  He was never seen in much but his patched faded overalls, and he never had much to call his own, but he held the love of a lot of children, and they held a corner of their heart just for his occupancy.  I know because my Mama has told me so, and I have heard the gentle tone in voices of others who recall.  It was Uncle Feller who took the children of the family  out in the fields for "camp outs", who built them big bonfires, and told them "haint tales".  It was Uncle Feller who took them fishing down to the creek, and Uncle Feller whose faded blue eyes twinkled in his sun-browned face,  who could be counted on for a good joke and most any fun that came their way. Uncle Feller lived a long life, but he did not meet a peaceful end.  His death is something of a mystery, and seemed to be an accident.  He left no wife, he left no children, he left no property.  He probably never had much more than two thin dimes to rub together, but perhaps he was richer than most.  He was laid to rest  near others of his family.  He had no children to mourn his passing, but the generation they would have been of was there, all of them with the means to make the trip.  Neices and nephews they came, and it was his neices and nephews, remembering, who placed the tombstone to mark his grave, and  with gratitude for having known him made sure it was marked not just with a given name, but with the fond name they had given him, "Uncle Feller". He lives on in their stories, and I have yet to see anything but a soft nostalgic smile from anyone who owns the blessing of a memory. I knew but two things about him of my own memory: his appearance with that deep sun-browned skin and the startling faded blue eyes, and the "magic" he worked one summer day for me.  But I have always heard he had "the Gift".  More than once I have paused at his grave, in the years since, and reading the inscription "Uncle Feller" placed there by the adult children of a family, more than once seeing a bundle of wildflowers left upon the grave,  thought perhaps the "Gift" was never quite what people thought it was. He was  "Uncle Feller", Henry Warfield 1902-1977, buried in Ham Cemetery, Stewart Co. TN jan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. 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